Flood

Like a deep canyon, I can feel my heart cracking.
I can feel all the pieces I superglued so carefully coming apart. I think,This must be what God felt like as He watched the world He made
sit heavy under the flood water’s mercy.

This is my poetic way of saying that it hurts. So badly.

I look out my window and I can barely break a hallelujah from my lips.
I can barely find, anywhere deep inside, a reason to thank God that I am alive.
All I find in me is melancholy. This sadness that used to live
in the untouched corners of my soul; places human eyes have never seen,
human hands have never touched, human hearts could never love.

I wake up to find all the sadness has spilled over, into what I knew to be empty space.
Like turning a planet full of land into an ocean, sadness spills over into my veins;
Like heavy rain and unforgiving fountains.

I am lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling,
trying to find the prayer I tucked under my pillow the night before.
I find nothing but questions, of what I did to deserve this pain.
This hurt that I cannot explain. This hurt that I cannot change.
This hurt that leaves me, wanting to break my rib cage.

I can remember exactly how old I was when my heart first ached,
I just wish I knew how old this earth was when Noah and his sons felt its core shake.
Because I want to know, how long has God endured this hurt?

My chest gets tight, and I close my eyes, and I bow my head.
And I pray, that each bone in my rib cage will be able to bend.
To expand, like Pangea over open waters; that my bones won’t fall apart
when my heart can’t find a reason to keep beating; that my lungs won’t give up
when I can’t think of a reason to keep breathing.

I pray I will find a hallelujah, in this:
knowing I have ached before. knowing I have found myself drowning before.
Knowing I have a God, who let the earth He loved sit aching
under the weight of water– and it is still standing. And I am still standing.

I pray I will find a hallelujah, in this:
knowing I have a God who sees the empty I can’t fill.
He sees the overflow of hurt flooding my soul;
even though I don’t deserve it He still paints rainbows on my ceiling.
He still wrote love– He still wrote hope– between the beams of a cross.

I pray I will find a hallelujah, in this:
Knowing God ached for His dying Son.
My sin, weighing Him down heavy.
Knowing that my God died, from His heart literally breaking,my sin weighing Him down heavy.
And He is still standing.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” – Romans 8:18-21 (NIV)

Anna Gayle is a junior digital communication major at Andrews University. She is the cofounder of Andrews' poetry club, The Sound, and after graduation she plans to use poetry to inspire, educate, and enrich the lives of young people. Anna's other passions, besides poetry, include Jesus, art, and her family and friends.